1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pasting machine of an orifice type for continuously applying an active paste to a continuous substrate for use in continuously producing pasted electrode plates for a lead battery.
2. Description of Related Art
In producing continuously pasted electrode plates to be used for a lead battery, such as by continuously applying an active paste onto a continuously cast substrate, for instance, there has been publicly known a pasting machine having an orifice type hopper for applying a negative paste to the continuous cast substrate so as to extend the paste over both surfaces of the continuous substrate. One example thereof is shown in FIG. 2. Namely, in FIG. 2, 1 designates a hopper. There is arranged within the hopper 1 a pair of front and rear paddles 2,2 located at the upper portion of the interior of the hopper, a delivery roller 3 located at the lower portion thereof, and an auxiliary roller 4 located diagonally to the upper front portion of the delivery roller 3 with a space S therebetween. A saw-toothed roller 5 serves as a feed roller, located at the rear side of the intermediate portion thereof, for feeding an active paste towards the space S formed between the mutually opposite auxiliary roller 4 and the delivery roller 3. Also it is so arranged that there is a space Sxe2x80x2 between the delivery roller 3 and a curved inner surface of the front wall of the hopper 1 that is in opposition to the delivery roller 3, for communicating between the foregoing space S and an orifice delivery opening 6a of an orifice plate 6 fixed to a lower end of the hopper 1. The delivery opening 6a opens toward the same direction as the direction in which a continuously cast substrate A travels, as shown by an arrow, by a belt conveyor 7 running from the front of the hopper 1 towards the rear thereof, in other words, in the rear direction, as shown by an arrow.
When a comparatively soft paste of active material, of which penetration is about 30xcx9c50, is pasted or applied continuously to the continuous cast substrate A using the foregoing pasting machine, a delivery amount of active paste from the delivery opening 6a is sufficient. However, if a comparatively hard paste of active material of which penetration is about 20xcx9c30 is pasted or applied continuously thereto to using this machine, the delivery amount of the paste from the delivery opening is liable to become insufficient, so that a dispersion in the bulk density results, and it is difficult to uniformly paste or apply to a continuous substrate stable and favorably, so that stable and good positive electrode plates can not be produced.
Here, the penetration of active paste was measured, by using a penetrometer, such as a glove penetrometer or the like, in such a manner, for instance, that the point of a needle weighing 70 g, held vertically by a holding machine, is placed on the top surface of a piled paste to be measured and the needle is then released to penetrate into the paste, and the penetration distance or depth of the needle was measured. When the distance of penetration is 0.1 mm, the value thereof is expressed as 1. Therefore, the foregoing penetration value 20xcx9c30 means 2.0xcx9c3.0 mm and the penetration value 30xcx9c50 means 3.0xcx9c5.0 mm.
The present invention is to solve the problems for the foregoing prior art and provide a pasting machine which is capable of continuously pasting or applying stably and satisfactorily not only a soft paste of active material, but also a hard paste of active material onto the continuous cast substrate, wherein there is arranged within a hopper a pair of front and rear rotatable paddles located at the upper portion of the interior of the hopper, a delivery roller located at the lower portion thereof, and an auxiliary roller located diagonally to the upper front portion of the delivery roller with a space therebetween. A feed roller is located at the rear side of the intermediate portion of the hopper for feeding active paste towards the space formed between the mutually opposite auxiliary roller and the delivery roller, and an orifice plate, which is fixed to the lower end of the hopper, has an orifice delivery opening, opening in the same direction as the direction in which a continuous cast substrate travels. The improvement includes use of a vaned roller-having 2 to 3 vanes as the feed roller. Further, the present invention is characterized in that, in the above-mentioned paste machine according to the present invention, the width of the orifice delivery opening is in the range of 1.4xcx9c1.7 times the width of a space between the inner face of the front wall of the hopper and the delivery roller.
By using the vaned roller as the feed roller, the forwardly feeding pushing force exerted on the paste within the hopper towards the space between the auxiliary roller and the delivery roller is increased and the comparatively soft paste of active material, and even the comparatively hard paste of active material also can be pasted or applied stably and favorably continuously to the continuous cast substrate. By limiting the width of the delivery opening to the range of 1.4xcx9c1.7 of that of the width of the space between an inner face of the front wall of the hopper and the delivery roller, the pasting speed of comparatively hard paste of active material can be accelerated.